I've fallen behind a bit, but Junto has been great for my musical output and also my approach to composition/recording/production. Ethan's survey captures some of the why - including the other great brains you get to run into doing it.

"Nymphaea is one in a set of 7 works made under the title Ethereal Information. These works are Pure data patches, and they are generative sound works functioning by the rules of partially fixed algorithms. Each of the patches leaves the space for user’s input that will influence certain aspects of the work. Patches can be used under the Creative Commons Attribution license, as part of other works, in installations, galleries, public spaces or wherever you find them suitable."

Music as software. I'm listening to it now; not as an MP3, but as a PureData patch. Very good.

A really beautiful demonstration of a modular performance; so musical, so careful, and so clearly live; such an understanding. Fascinating to see someone who first learned on a Buchla, too, in this age, but it clearly comes through in her approach to the instrument.

Really interesting interview with John Frusciante on his move into electronic music; particularly interesting (and good) on the relationship between engineering and art, and an artist's desire to work more closely with his materials.

"We are defining a story, and this will be the context for the music, and music will always be about that context. If the story of my music was like, “Yeah, I download illegal software and I make a hundred tracks and ten are good, and I’ll always do it while I’m on the train or the bus, and I have headphones on and I just make music all the time,” it would raise a question: ‘What is inspiring you?’" This leapt out at me and smacked me around the chops a bit. Smashing interview with Nils Frahm about his recent collaboration with Ólafur Arnalds. (Also, I did not realise how the Korg PS-3100 did polyphony. Blimey.)

Rich "Disasterpeace" Vreeland talks through some of the Fez soundtrack, but really, he's giving a quite nice lesson in Massive, which is a synthesizer I'd sort of wrapped my head around but now am a lot happier with. It's been especially good since I've been messing around with a real (but simpler) analog synth, and that's been coaching me on sound design, too.

"We then witnessed him giving the most heartfelt and profound vocal performance, live in the control room through an SM57. He would sing us an entire string arrangement, every part. Steve Porcaro once told me he witnessed MJ doing that with the string section in the room. Had it all in his head, harmony and everything. Not just little eight bar loop ideas. he would actually sing the entire arrangement into a micro-cassette recorder complete with stops and fills." It's all there, already, in his head; and god, he hits those notes so well. No auto-tune there.

This is a super-good article about developing generative music - though it's on a games site and one of the focuses is games, it also talks about generative piped music for buildings. And, notably, comments on the difference between a generative score and generative mixing. It's a great article, even if you're not into games.

"It's the music which has surrounded us our whole lives, but which most of us have never quite heard let alone listened to... and nearly all of it made in the UK." Two years old now, but this is a lovely little documentary about library music, with lots of interviews with composers and collectors alike; so nice to contextualise this stuff. (And: a reminder why secretly I always wanted to be a session player).